Critical Thinking About Environmental Issues - Global Warming (hardcover edition)

Environmental topics pervade classrooms today, but true understanding of them is elusive. All too often, subjects such as global warming, species extinction, and the role of pesticides are reduced to simple slogans because accurate information is hard to find.

Yet there is enormous scientific debate about these topics. Thomas Jefferson said that "difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry to truth." Critical Thinking About Environmental Issues will prepare young people to become inquiring citizens by introducing them to the scientific and economic debates that underlie environmental issues.

Each volume will provide readers with a range of scientific views and theories on an environmental topic and introduce facts that are sometimes ignored. Each will help readers use their critical thinking skills. By exposing students to differences in opinion, this series will enable them to search for the truth and to make their own decisions.

Reviewed with Randy Simmons' Endangered Species.

Gr. 7-12. These two titles in the Critical Thinking about Environmental Issues series offer balanced, nonalarmist introductions to major global issues. Global Warming considers the current debates, the potential causes for rising temperatures, and expert opinions on the threat of global warming and its possible consequences. It ends with a look at the failings of the Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and suggestions for addressing global warming from well-known scientists. Endangered Species introduces different viewpoints about the issue's urgency and shows the shortcomings of the U.S. Endangered Species Act. An insightful chapter about the uneasy relationship between humans and animals is followed by discussion of current successful efforts to save diminishing species. The series format is extremely lackluster, with grainy, too-small, black-and-white photos, and in an effort to present a balanced viewpoint, there are a few statements that differ from general consensus: the series foreword, for example, refers to scientific studies that suggest "pesticides cause little harm to humans." But the text in both books is engaging, and it shows the complexity of the problems as well as the dangers of superficial solutions. Extensive source notes and further readings conclude. Gillian Engberg
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